GHRL and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: Ghrelin also attenuated motoneuron loss in organotypic rat spinal cord cultures exposed to threohydroxyaspartate (THA), a model of excitotoxic motoneuron degeneration, and prevented spinal cord microglia activation and expression of IL-1β and TNF-α, suggesting a possible therapeutic role for ghrelin in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis [263].